You cannot do anything wrong, if you don’t do anything!
– Dave Dallam
overheard
Overheard : On cutting down “stuff”
We’re good as humans to committing to things that are positive. That’s very motivating for us. We’re bad at trying to avoid things that are negative
– Cal Newport in conversation with Tim Ferriss
Cal was speaking about how we are good at adding things that seem good to to us (facebook is good because we can communicate on the fly), but bad at avoiding negative things (being on facebook and doom scrolling is a bad thing). He instead suggests, just using technology for things you like (I will have facebook, but only follow and read messages from folks I want to).
Overheard : Watermelon Metrics
Watermelon Metric : Green (good) on the outside and red (bad) once you dig in.
– Daniel Shapero (LinkedIn COO) on a post on LinkedIn
Some examples
- If churn is down (looks green)… but when you look into why it’s down is because all of your customers left last year (very bad)
- A manager’s EVS scores are up because everyone who was unhappy left
- Brand awareness could be considered watermelon if it’s high but brand perception is poor.
- The click-through rate of an email campaign is high, but when you dig in you learn that it’s because so many users are clicking in the footer to change their email preferences or opt out.
- YOY Revenue is increasing (Green) – especially currently as businesses are raising prices to accommodate inflation – but when you dig in, you see profits are actually suffering (red)
Overheard : Tradeoffs
Everything that you take on is implicitly something that you’re not taking on
– Francis Davidson (CEO of Sonder) in conversation with Patrick O’Shaughnessy
Speaking about tradeoffs that organizations and individuals make when prioritizing work.
Overheard : Empathy
LibertyRPF on Empathy during a conversation with Jim O’Shaughnessy on his Infinite Loops podcast
Don’t just treat others how you would like to be treated. Take the extra step and figure out how they would like to treated and treat them like that.
Oveheard : Pain
our ability to deal with pain is directly proportional to our ability to see pain elsewhere.
Subroto Bagchi
Overheard : Services vs Product businesses
In the services business, you get paid to say yes to everything.
In the product business, you get paid to say no. By convincing the customer that you are not going to give what they want, but what they need.
– Sanveet Singh (CEO of $PAR) on a podcast with Richard Sosa
Overheard : Revenue, Profit & Cash-Flow
Not sure about the origins of this phrase, but came across in a quarterly newsletter from Greenwood Investors
revenue is vanity, profit is sanity and cash-flow is reality
Overheard : Unexpected, Unanticipated, Unfair
Caught this on a whiteboard at work 🙂
In business, just like in life, we are going to have to deal with the unexpected, the unanticipated and the unfair. Those who deal most successfully with all of it are the ones who have the attitude that indeed whatever happens is normal. That doesn’t mean that whatever happens is acceptable or pleasant. But it does mean that changes and surprises are part of life, and we can choose to either roll with the changes or the change rolls over us.